- Genre
- Mythological legend
- Source status
- folkloric
- Motifs
- young woman in white, barking dog, sickroom, unequal sight
The story
Šimkus was gravely ill. One evening a woman working at the other end of the house heard the dog bark and looked through the window. A young woman dressed in white was passing through the house towards the sickroom.
Before long the visitor came out again. The dog barked once more and followed her as far as the gate, where she disappeared.
The woman hurried to the patient. The neighbours sitting with him had heard the dog, but knew nothing of any young visitor and had not seen her.
Šimkus died soon afterwards. In the account, the white-clad visitor remained a sign of approaching death witnessed by only one person.
Reading the story
The text does not name the visitor Giltinė or describe a skeleton or a scythe. Its particular tension lies in shared hearing and unequal sight: several people hear the dog, but only one sees the young woman.
The 1967 edition cites J. Basanavičius, Iš gyvenimo vėlių bei velnių (1903), p. 44, abbreviated there as BsV.
Source and retelling
Lietuvių tautosaka, IV (1967), Nr. 437, p. 481: „Balta viešnia“. An original retelling of the recorded traditional narrative cited here. The sequence of events and ending are retained in modern language.